


This Too Shall Pass

by Kadmus



Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Abusive Societies, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Death, Fantasy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadmus/pseuds/Kadmus
Summary: Peleps Lasari has been consigned to a monastery at the North of the world, for failing to be what her house wanted from her. She would not mind it, were the monastery not also where every wine-soaked failure of the Great Houses seems to get sent to cool their head while whatever scandal they just caused dies down.And, of course, an Anathema has just shown up nearby.
Relationships: Peleps Lasari & Death
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a copy-over of a quest I am running on Sufficient Velocity. It should be updated around the same time as the main quest.

Peleps Lasari wakes at the same time every morning, before the sun rises. She washes, shaves her head, and dresses herself in simple robes, then walks, briskly but carefully, to the main temple. It is a stark, unadorned thing, all grey granite and slate, and snow perches on the edges of the roof even in summer. Before the first rays cross the horizon, she bows her head to the central shrine and repeats the morning mantras, offering her devotion to the Five Dragons. He voice is high and strong, carrying to every corner of the temple without a need to shout, but none attend to hear her. Even her fellows in the Immaculate Order do not bother with this practice, not here, so far from the Blessed Isle. She carries on regardless.

It takes two hours to perform the full cycle of worship, and her voice stops at the precise moment her prayers do, just in time for the sun to peek in through the high, small windows. She spends another fifteen minutes in silent contemplation, eyes half closed, staring at the iconography of the central shrine and meditating on the nature of the Five Dragons. This is not part of the normal practice of the Immaculate Faith, but a personal touch of her own, and the only indulgence she allows herself.

She then sweeps the hall and dusts the shrines, both the main one to the Five Dragons, with its carefully painted back panel and the small, carved figures of the Dragons, and the other shrines, to local gods. She says one final prayer for the morning, thanks for the day to come, and leaves. The others living in the remote monastery are not yet awake; many of them are still in a drunken stupour, and others only closed their eyes mere moments before she opened hers. She does not allow herself to dwell on this, for resentment of the Dragon-blooded is a sin. Her mortal shell means that she has no right to judge them, for they have earned their status, and their souls will pass on to ever greater things. 

She is a great-grand-daughter of the Scarlet Empress, but her cousins and aunts and great-great-grandnieces among the Exalted are her moral betters. She knows this in her head, even as her heart questions, but her faith is clear and she knows that this, too, is a test. She failed in a previous life, and so she has been reborn a mortal again in order to learn and change and improve. In the next life, she hopes, she will be finally granted the place she was promised with her birth in this one.

She dismisses the thoughts with a breath, and goes out to the courtyard, feeling the cold stone through her thin cloth shoes. Even those are a compromise, for she should be bare-foot, the better to connect to Pasiap, but the Immaculate Faith recognises that lost toes make this a challenging endeavour. The ever-present snow lies mostly heaped in corners and against the walls, and, as it has not snowed overnight, it does not cover the main square. The residential buildings hem her in to the east and west, to the north is the temple, and to the south is the large hall that houses all the various necessities of life out here - the kitchen, laundry, store rooms and dining room, to name a few. There is a wall around the compound, barely four metres tall, just enough to keep the worst of the snow out in the deep of winter. 

This has been her home for the past five years, and she did not love it when she first came. She has grown to loathe it with every fibre of her body; it is not the location, but it is the people.

She breathes out once more, and finds her centre. Her toes grip the cold stone, and her arms describe careful arcs as she moves, slowly, warming up through the Five-And-Fivefold Forms, moving through the cycle of elements and letting the simple, ingrained motions wipe away her thoughts. This, too, is worship. Emulation of the Five Dragons should be sought in all things, and nowhere is a dragon more at home than in a fight. Air finds her leaping, tumbling, sweeping high and low. Fire is sharp and fierce, relentless barrages that leave even her momentarily breathless. Water yields and turns, never facing anything head-on until the very last moment, turning all her momentum into a single brutal strike. Earth is calm and steady, deceptively simple movements that nevertheless hold immense strength. Wood has always been her weakest, for it is a contradictory art, life-in-death and death-in-life, but she is still skilled in it. Straight jabs with extended fingers, striking to nerves and vulnerable points, collapsing strikes that transition from knife-hand to fist to elbow to shoulder-barge. 

She knows that she will have an audience, by now. Someone always wakes just early enough to watch her. She knows that, so some, she is attractive - tall and slender, with defined muscles and a straight back. She has never held an interest in these things, and some of those living here know that full well, and taunt her with it. Others simply have no control over themselves; there is a good reason they are here, instead of doing their duty as Dynasts.


	2. Prologue 2

“Her form imperfect, she seeks the Dragons,” a voice chimes, from a window behind Lasari. It is light and airy and entirely unfitting the woman it comes from - Nellens Godala is a solidly built woman, broad of shoulder, hip, and, to her eternal regret, stomach. 

Lasari remembers her from primary school, back when neither of them were Dragon-blooded and Godala was a pudgy older girl who sobbed in quiet corners when she thought no-one was looking. She grew taller and crueller and came into her blood, while Lasari grew weary and beaten-down by life. There are none so cruel as those who have suffered cruelty, and found themselves in a position to turn that back upon their tormentors. Lasari is not too proud to admit that she did Godala wrong, so many years ago, and when the woman first arrived she prostrated herself to apologise.

“Greetings, Nellens Godala,” Lasari says, turning to dip a short bow to the older woman. She is lounging on her windowsill, a bottle of something in one hand and a book, likely of illicit poetry, in the other. She is dressed in her nightclothes, but this far north those are a formidable set of garments in their own right. Her hair falls in a dark wave across the right side of her face, concealing an ugly, twisted scar and a milky, blinded eye. Her left eye, though, that holds a focus and clarity that could sear the soul out of a man. It has never, in all the time she has been at the monastery, looked at Lasari’s face.

“Greetings,” Godala says. “Your seventy-three is off.”

Lasari frowns, and thinks back to the move. Ivy Pierces Stone, a series of sharp, precise jabs with two fingers outstretched on each hand, intended, with the correct application of Essence, to punch holes clean through a foe, regardless of armour. 

“Your footing was weak, and your form collapsed. It is so disappointing to see you struggle like this, my dear,” Godala says, words so sincere they lash Lasari with fire. “But then it’s only to be expected. One cannot hold a leftover child to a Dragon’s standards, after all.”

Lasari suppresses the flinch with the tired ease of long practice, and tamps down on the building fury. “I apologise for staining your vision,” she says, instead.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Godala says, a smile working its way onto her face. “You can be a delight to watch. Like a dancer born with only one leg, stumbling from move to move, desperate to catch up with her peers.”

Lasari bows shallowly once more, to hide her face. “Your words honour me.”

“Yes, well, if you won’t come up here and join me in bed, you should go and…” Godala pauses, and her lips purse, as though deep in thought. “Do whatever it is that servants do.” She waves a disinterested hand, takes a pull form her bottle, and turns that burning eye to her book.

Lasari remains bowed for a moment, collecting herself, easing her fists open, and walks briskly to the storerooms. She tucks herself into a corner and leans, both arms above her head, against the wall, head down, concentrating on her breathing. She does not sit, or kneel, for if she did she would not rise again for hours. She breathes and recites mantras in her head, washing away the shame with faith. It never ends, and it is her place. Why should she hate it so? Why should it burn her throat like hot coals with words unsaid? Why should she shame her faith by resenting her betters?

She stays there for a long few minutes, throttling the snake of wrath with chains of scripture. It is always arduous, and she never feels better afterwards, but it is done nonetheless. The day must continue. There are prayers to say, rites to enact, and chores to finish, and Lasari knows that none of the wastrels here will ever bother to enter the temple outside of Calibration or to pray for better luck at cards. The sun is now nearly overhead, and it is time for her to break her fast. 

The kitchen is abustle, now that the other inhabitants are starting to wake. She collects her simple porridge, fortified with a handful of dried fruit and a sprinkling of cheese, and eats it in silence. Around her, the Dragon-blooded drink cheap wine and eat the same porridge, garnished with meat and spices. This, at least, she does not need to bury her resentment of. She has never really desired luxury, never felt that a simple meal is beneath her, and never cared for wine or spirits. She loves the calm ritual and structured day of her life as an Immaculate, and the few scant months she spent as a new monk on the Blessed Isle are her fondest memories. She was part of something greater, then, and now she is almost alone.

Still. She has work to do, and her bowl is empty. She can wool-gather later, before she sleeps. It is a short trip to the gates, and from there down the slope of the mountain to the snow-dusted forest. The silence is palpable, there, a thing found between pine needles rattled by the wind and the soft dry sound of snow sloughing from boughs. She always takes her time, here, even in the worst weather. The sun filters through the canopy, razor-thin blades of light illuminating the spongy floor of half-rotted pine needles. Little armoured bugs scatter before her slow footsteps, scurrying to better cover, and a fluffy wood-pigeon whirrs overhead, disturbing a whole miniature avalanche of snow from the tree it flees. The cold sharp tang of resin, the warm musk of slowly-rotting wood and leaves, the icy bite of snow off the mountains - all of it fills her with calm focus. Her path meanders, winding around trees and avoiding those signs of animals she spots. 

Too soon, she emerges on the other side, and sees the small town below the ridge she stands on, and beyond it, the chill waters of the great western ocean. Tiny fishing boats bob on the waves, dodging ice and hauling in salmon and whiskerfish and deeper, stranger things that still move once cooked. Nearer the shore, larger boats haul up crab and lobster pots, dodging claws and sharp legs, and sometimes breaking out into fights between crews, when the boats pass too close to one another. Old men and women sit on the warped wooden docks, mending nets and pots and gossipping with one another. The fields around the town are filled with waving grain, golden in the late summer sun, and the farmers sharpen their scythes and eye the horizon, waiting for the right moment. 

The town is almost bleak, from this angle; the steep roofs are all grey slate, and the buildings rough-hewn granite, and the low wall around the town is more of the same. But she knows that, up close, every building glints and glitters in the sun. Tiny flecks of fire, caught in the grey earth, reflect their father. The people wear clothes in bright shades of red and blue and green, trimmed with the iridescent furs of the pearl beavers that infest the lower woodlands. Flowers hang from roof corners in long garlands, and no-one refuses the polished shells that wash up on the shore. Pearls shine in half the ears of the town, and the women all wear snug brimless hats embroidered with monsters and heroes.

She knows that all of them have their own little gods, worshipped in secret, at hidden shrines or out on the water or deep in the wheat. The Blessed Isle is far away, and the Empress is gone. There are only three Immaculates at the monastery, and only one of them is a Dragon-blooded. The gods they manage are the most important in the area, and mostly keep their subordinates in line. All of these are reasons, but they do not excuse their failure. She must work as hard as she can, as she has every day in the five years of her life here.

The path down to the town is long and winding, an endless series of switchbacks down the near-cliff below the forest. Her feet are sure and steady, even in the deep winter days she manages to come down the mountain; on a dry, still day like today she barely even pays attention. There are no clouds visible, and the sun is strong enough to warm her, and the day has been tolerable. She is, for the moment, happy. 

As she approaches the town, the gate guards greet her. The same two are almost always on duty - in a town this small, there are only a few guards, and she knows them all. One on either side of the gate, a study in contrasts.

“Morning, Lasari,” says the first, a short, stocky woman. She leans on her spear and smiles at the world, pale skin creased with age and a life spent outdoors, golden eyes half-closed.

“Good morning, Ajana,” Lasari replies. “Good morning, Muji.”

The man on the other side grunts, and allows her a nod. He is tall and rail-thin, with tell-tale neck gills and fine-scaled skin that reflects silver. His great-great-grandfather lives beneath the waves, and there is a shrine to him in the temple. 

“Good haul came in just after daybreak,” Ajana says, drawing Lasari’s attention back to her. “The boys damn near sank their boat with it.”

“A positive omen,” Lasari says, and bows her head. “May the Five bless your day.”

“Aye, I hope so,” Ajana says, and waves Lasari through. “Go on, then, I’m sure they’re waiting.”

Lasari walks on, from the packed dirt road outside the walls to the uneven cobble of the interior streets. A small group of children, all younger than eight, bright-eyed and cheery, mob her, chattering and clambering and shoving. She bears it with a fond smile, ruffling hair and dispensing hugs. She keeps moving, the children trailing her like the tail of a comet, following the same path she has every day she has been able to. She passes the glinting buildings, nose filled with flowers and fish, and hands out slivers of dried fruit to the children. She nods greetings to the citizens she passes, and it seems like the whole town is sat outside today, taking advantage of the sun to sew and saw and sing. The tunes are mournful, but the words are joyous; the folk so far north have a grim sense of things, and find humour in darkness. 

The slate is waiting for her, as it always is. Her congregation crowd the town square, anyone who can spare a moment and many who can’t. Old and young, poor and rich, all attend who are able to get to the square in time. Not for faith, she knows, not for most of them; the faith of these people is a subtle thing, quiet and private most of the year. They come because she offers something they cannot get elsewhere, something even the richest amongst them value.

She brings knowledge. Her slate, a great grey slab twice as wide as a man is tall, is propped up on sturdy wooden legs, visible to all as she stands on the raised steps of the town hall. She can see, out in the crowd, many folk holding small pieces of slate of their own, ready to practice their letters and take what notes they can. There must be a hundred people here, watching her, and it feels so big and so small at the same time. She feels insignificant, but it is a comforting feeling, the sensation of being part of something greater than her own feeble shell. 

“Every scale has its place,” she says, loud enough that all can hear her. Her voice bounces back to her from the walls of the houses and halls around her, and the crowd falls mostly silent. “It is said that, with one missing scale, a dragon is vulnerable. With all arrayed, it is undefeatable. So, too, is the Realm.”

Her sermon lasts exactly as long as the crowd has patience, a length she judges from the gleam in the eyes of the elderly and the fidgeting of children. Too long, and they start to leave. Too short, and she has not performed her duty to its greatest. She knows they do not truly care for her words, but she continues. The faith which has brought her such happiness must be given a chance to help others, and there are some devoted amongst the townfolk. Nevertheless, it is less than half an hour before she moves to the core of her visits. 

She teaches them letters and numbers, how to read the words of High Realm and Low Realm and both Sky- and Seatongue. There is no written form of the local language, but all save the most isolated speak at least Skytongue. With her help, trade and travel have steadily increased, bringing prosperity and happiness to the town. This, too, is a gift of the Five Dragons, for was it not lofty Mela who first brought language to humanity? Pasiap who granted it permanence with writing? In this way, Lasari also preaches. She has had to learn subtlety, these past years.

It grated upon her, at first, to teach unwashed peasants and incontinent old men, but she saw the joy in their eyes and heard the gratitude in their words and knew the truth of things: even if she spoke no prayers, even if she never thought the names of the Five Dragons again, and only taught for the rest of her days, she would be doing work as great as that of the highest abbess. Every soul has the chance to join the Dragons, and self-improvement draws one closer. She is helping them, and it soothes her broken heart.

She teaches until the sun begins to sink, and then she stays, waiting for the torrent of questions and requests for advice she always gets. Even a priest of gods they hardly worship can be useful, in this way.


	3. Prologue 3

The first person in line, as she often is, is Fai’ir. She stands a head shorter than Lasari, with rope-calloused palms and salt-etched wrinkles, for all that she’s barely twenty-five. She is corralling her children in much the same way she nets in shoals of fish just off shore. Lasari has never known Fai’ir to be still, and the young woman juggles raising her children, fishing, and caring for her elderly parents without complaint.

“Lasari!” she says, leaning forwards to tap her forehead against Lasari’s own. “Good day for it, hey? Bright sun, calm sea, and one hell of a morning haul.”

Her eldest, Dana, spreads his arms and shouts “This many!”, barely missing his sister with his wild swing. They nearly begin to fight, but both Lasari and Fai’ir have done this many times before, and the two are gently separated before it goes anywhere. 

“I heard,” Lasari says. “Was it truly so impressive? You’ve had good catches before.”

“Oh, it wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen,” Fai’ir says, and nudges Lasari with her hip. “You should have seen what Khassat brought in when he was courting me. The fish were pretty good, too,” she adds with a raucous laugh and a wink.

Lasari nods politely. 

“Anyway, I love catching up, but, uh, I need to talk to you a little more private-like. Kids, go bother Sulian’s brats!” she says, shooing her children over towards the very loud mob of fishermen and their sons, who have apparently decided to throw an impromptu party. “They’re the ones who brought it in,” she says, and turns back to face Lasari. She steps close enough she can whisper in her ear. “They brought… something else up with it. We don’t know what it is, and we don’t know what to do with it.”

“What does it look like?” Lasari whispers back, keeping her face carefully pleasant.

“Like gold, inlaid with silver, almost. But it’s not right. It moves when you don’t look at it.”

Lasari’s heart beats faster. If it is made of what it sounds like, it needs to be moved to the Blessed Isle as soon as possible. “Where are you keeping it?” she asks.

“Locked it up in old man Vasir’s warehouse. He’s got that strongroom, and seemed like the best place to keep it,” Fai’ir says. “You know how this place is. Everyone will know about it by tomorrow. You think someone up your way would be interested?”

She fakes a laugh, and Lasari forces a smile onto her face. “I can bring the abbess down tonight to inspect it. If it is valuable, I am sure my family will happily pay everyone for it. It could be very dangerous.”

“See, you know what I wanted before I even had to ask,” Fai’ir says. “I’ll see you later. Meet me at the warehouse tonight at ten.”

Lasari nods, and Fai’ir envelops her in a hug before she has a chance to do anything else. She endures it, and even pats Fai’ir on the back twice, before the younger woman lets her go. 

“Good talk!” Fai’ir says, hands on her hips. “Now, if you don’t mind, I smell grilled fish. I’ll see you around, Lasari! Swift currents!”

“May Daana’d guide your sails,” Lasari replies, dipping her head. 

The rest of the petitioners move swiftly, little queries and simple answers, until she reaches the last in the line. He is a slim young man, underfed and nervous, and his long red hair is tied back in a messy tail. His light brown skin is only a fraction paler than her own, but his eyes are warm amber and he smiles sheepishly at her. He is unfamiliar to her, but she greets him anyway.

“Oh, um, hello,” he says. “I’m, uh, a traveller, and I just wanted to say that it’s pretty inspiring, what you’re doing here.”

He sounds so young that she immediately revises her guess of his age downwards; not underfed, simply not yet grown. Perhaps sixteen, at the oldest, with the way his voice cracks.

“Thank you for your words,” she says. “Would you like a blessing, to ease your way?”

He shuffles awkwardly, all elbows and knees. “I don’t- that is, uh, I’m not very…” he pauses, searching for the word. “…versed in the Immaculate Faith. There’s nothing, um, wrong with you blessing me?”

She smiles, weary. “Blessings are freely given, even to those who do not believe. Who am I to decide who the Five Dragons choose to protect? If they do not intercede on your behalf, they do not, and if they do, they do.”

She raises a hand, eyebrow quirked, and he nods to her, eyes fixed to her own. She makes the signs of the Dragons, complicated, finger-wrenching gestures for any not practised in them, and speaks clearly.

“May Danaa’d smooth the waves, Sextes Jylis provide you succour, Mela scatter storms, Pasiap steady your road, and Hesiesh keep you warm,” she intones, as she has so many times before, and she feels a little peace settle over her. It is a simple peasant blessing, and would have her laughed out of any real temple, but they do not have an hour to perform the full rites, and it is more important to spread the Dragons’ love with true devotion than to mouth empty platitudes. There are thousands of variations on the blessing, but her own inclinations and those of the coastal town decided this one.

She has always wanted to be Water.

The boy smiles wider, and something tense in his shoulders relaxes. “Thank you,” he says. 

“May I have your name?” she asks, her own smile widening in return. “If you are willing to offer it. I am Peleps Lasari.”

His eyes go wide. “I’m, um, surprised to see a Dragon-blooded so far from home,” he says. 

“I’m not,” she says, joy crashing down again.

“Far from home?”

“Dragon-blooded. Thank you for coming to the service,” she says, smile tightening.

“Oh. I’m… I’m very sorry, ma’am,” he says, eyes darting this way and that. “I- um, thank you for the blessing!”

He flees. Lasari schools her expression and pushes down on her sorrow; he did not know, and it was a compliment, in many ways. On the Blessed Isle, he would have been serendipitously arranged by one of her House’s enemies, to shame her in public; here, everyone knows already and does not care. They like her more for it, even. She can connect to them in a way the abbess cannot. She certainly cannot imagine the abbess allowing a petitioner to touch her. Lasari would have dreaded the idea, and did, for many months after her arrival here. But you can get used to anything, eventually, and the townsfolk are respectful enough of her wishes that they keep contact to a minimum.

She collects her wooden alms bowl - which is, as always, filled with little slates the length of her finger, asking for certain lessons to be given next - bows to the small council of elders who always watch, and whose words can turn the town, and departs. She does not walk so slowly on her way back up the mountain, this time; she has important business to discuss, and she does not want to wait until it is too late. She regrets not carrying her staff, but she rarely needs to move quickly enough or far enough to justify it, and any foe she faces which cannot be defeated with her fists would not be deterred by a length of wood. She does not run, but she gets back to the monastery thrice as fast as she descended. 

She passes through the narrow gate and sweeps across the cold flagstones and only slows at the entrance to the temple. She can hear the abbess, softly reciting mantras, and this is not so urgent as to interrupt. She dusts off her robes before she quietly enters the hall, and she glides to kneel behind and to the right of the ancient woman who is the only Immaculate Dragon-blooded in the entire region. 

The abbess is so old that it is rumoured she helped to found the Immaculate Order itself. This is ridiculous, but to townsfolk who have lived seven generations in her shadow, seems possible. Her eyebrows are long, gone silver-white with age, and the wrinkles on her face are so deep it looks like they were put there with a knife. Her back is still straight, though her joints ache and click, and she is a master of Water style. She is also technically Lasari’s aunt. Peleps Isaka does not pause in her prayer, and Lasari quickly joins her. It is a round prayer, in five parts, and best delivered with five monks, but even two add a depth and complexity that a single voice lacks.

Lasari lets her mind slip into the well-worn tracks of ritual, and her fears and anger and tension ease away. She is focussed, directing her faith and gratitude in the prescribed ways, so that the Five Dragons may truly know her. The prayer lasts exactly as long as it needs to, no longer, and two voices fall silent as one.

“You are back early, child,” Isaka says, still facing the shrine, voice steady and smooth. “Trouble or joy?”

“Both,” Lasari says. “The fishermen pulled up what sounds like a device of orichalcum and moonsilver. It may be nothing, but I was told it moves when no-one is looking.”

Isaka snorts, a disconcerting sound from such a dignified woman. “Just trouble, I think. Grandmother disappears and everything goes to shit. I doubt this will be any different.”

Lasari bows her head. “I said I would request that you come and inspect the device,” she says. “If you have no pressing matters.”

“Hah! The only pressing matters I have nowadays are waking to piss in the middle of the night. Well, I suppose I can have one of my sisters owe me a favour,” she says, slowly getting to her feet. It sounds like a bag of castanets falling down the stairs. “You’ll want your mother to have it, no doubt? Might even net you a posting to a less remote hellhole.”

“I would never dare to presume,” Lasari says, head still bowed. Of course she hoped for it. But to say so would be nearly blasphemy.

“Mm. Perhaps you should. A genuine First Age artifact would give your mother enough leverage to achieve some of her goals, even if she simply sold it. The sins of mortals are washed away easier than those of the chosen of the Dragons,” Isaka says, arms folded behind her back. “And you committed no great sin. But we must finish our duties here, first. Did you arrange a time?”

“After ten, at a warehouse by the docks,” Lasari says. “We should have plenty of time to say evening rites and get to town.”

“Well, no-one ever accused you of being stupid,” Isaka says, approving. “Come now. Help me move old Mujjit into position.”

She does not need Lasari’s assistance, but it is a kindness. They take the handles of the shrine and carry it to the lower dais around the one which keeps the shrine to the Five Dragons elevated, and place it front and centre. It is Mujjit’s turn to receive the prayer he has bargained for, and it is their job to provide it.

The prayers are simple, generic things, now. Compliments on his power, non-specific requests for aid, and platitudes. They do not worship Mujjit, they simply pray to him.

This too is the duty of the Immaculate Order.


	4. Prologue 4

Lasari and the abbess meet at the gate as night falls fully. Lasari bears a staff with a lantern attached to the top by a short chain, while the abbess simply brings herself. They set off, the way less steady than it was in daylight, and walk in silence for a few minutes before the abbess speaks.

“Ledaal, get your arse out of those trees before I bring you down my own way,” she says, still facing straight ahead.

Ledaal Zekan, slight and short, drifts to the forest floor ahead and to the right of them, and sweeps his dark cape out into a flourishing bow. “My dear lady, can you blame me for being curious?” he says, in that sing-song tone of his. His pale eyes sweep across the two of them, and then around, flicking from spot to spot, never alighting for long, like nervous birds.

Isaka sniffs derisively, and waves a gnarled hand. “If you are coming, walk with us. If you are not, go back to your room. A suspicious woman would think you might be spying on her.”

Zekan darts to stand beside the two monks, feet barely touching the ground, and brushes imaginary dust and real pine needles out of his artfully dishevelled pale green hair. “A wise woman would know that no son of the Ledaal house would ever be caught spying,” he says lightly.

Isaka clips his ear without even turning around, and he flinches, but does not protest. “You’re not in the Imperial City any more, brat. Not-smart-enough words and not-clever-enough tricks don’t just get you laughed at out here.”

He bows his head and mumbles an apology, and it seems to be enough for Isaka. He is only young, after all, and a man to boot, so what can really be expected of him? He’s lucky to get away with only a smacked ear.

“You know why we’re going to town, boy?” Isaka asks, as she keeps walking.

Zekan has to go a little faster than a walk to keep up with her strides, while Lesari, taller than him and fitter to boot, has no such trouble.

“I couldn’t guess,” he says.

“Mm. Well, you’ll just have to live with the curiosity. You’ll find out when I say you can, and no sooner,” Isaka says, and then her mouth crooks up in a wicked grin. “Or you’ll have to practice forms with Lasari until she is happy with your technique.”

He blanches even paler, and seems more afraid of this than of the dressing down from the abbess.

“It is not my place to instruct Ledaal Zekan, abbess,” Lasari says, keeping a careful step behind both of the Dragon-blooded. “I have not mastered the forms myself.”

“I’ve seen Immaculate shikari whose forms are worse,” Zekan blurts. “What ridiculous standard are you holding yourself to, Lasari?”

“We walk in the footsteps of Dragons, Ledaal Zekan, and even the mightiest warrior can be only a poor imitation,” Lasari says. Her eyes are narrowed, and her back is straight. In manners of Immaculate doctrine, at least, she is very much Zekan’s superior.

“You’re both right,” Isaka says, and the pair of them fall silent. “Lasari is a prodigious martial artist, and she is not good enough to claim mastery. We all know she never can be, in this life.”

Lasari bows her head to hide the pain, while Zekan rolls his eyes and goes back to watching the foliage. They haven’t been walking for ten minutes before he starts whistling, and, with a flex of his Essence, the soft breezes around join in the harmony; a parlour trick, for one of the Air aspect, but it drives barbs into Lasari’s heart. He doesn’t even think about it, possibly doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

The walk to town is faster than Lasari had expected, but slower than she hoped. The minutes dragged by like hours, and then Zekan didn’t even bother to take the path down the cliff, he simply jumped off to wait for them at the bottom. Isaka, at least, simply sniffs again and takes the path.

“Boys. You can’t take them anywhere without them showing off,” she grumbles. “This is why we have women in charge.”

Lasari nods her agreement, leading the way with her lantern; Isaka probably doesn’t need it, but it is courteous. She douses the lantern as they approach the town, and Zekan flits back into view as they step onto the level road. He has found a flower, somewhere, and tucked it artlessly behind one ear; it’s a pale lavender, and matches well with his hair, but it looks in danger of falling out at any moment. He’s grinning, though, and does a little spin as he approaches for some reason, his dark cape flaring out and kicking up dust.

Lasari covers her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her robes to keep the dust out and keeps walking behind Isaka, who hasn’t paused in her stride. Zekan looks disappointed for some reason, but trots along beside the abbess like an obedient dog. They pass through the gates, opened a sliver by a tired and silent Muji, who simply nods to Lasari and waves the trio through.

The streets are a little quieter than during the day, and different; there are no bellows of challenge from fisherman to fisherman on the sea, no loud rattle of knives being sharpened or the wet, efficient noise of fish being gutted and filleted. Instead, there are bawdy songs and the hollow sound of wooden tankards and the meaty muffled thuds of back-alley brawls. Bats scoot over the houses and swoop through the swarming insects at the shoreline, and a great fishing-owl hoots ominously in the distance. Zekan looks longingly at the taverns they pass, and very nearly leaves to get a drink, from his faltering steps, but he seems determined to find out what they’re up to. Few people are out on the streets, for even in the depth of summer it is too cold to be outside at night without good reason, but the few that are all greet Lasari and bow to Isaka. This seems to perplex Zekan, who has only ever seen the two monks at the monastery, and, worse, the citizens are mostly ignoring him.

Despite the delays, they still arrive at the promised time. Lasari is good at her job, and she knows how long it takes to get from one point to another in the town at various times of day; she accounted for the townsfolk when setting a departure time, and allowed for unexpected delays. Like Zekan. The docks are the quietest they ever are, and the sound of lapping waves and splashing fish and the soft murmuring creaks of the boats rising and falling are finally audible. The great fishing-owl Lasari heard earlier perches at the end of the furthest dock, atop one of the wooden pillars, scanning the dark ocean for its luminescent prey. The glowsquid spawn at the surface at this time of year, and though they are inedible to humans, the fishing-owls love them.

Lasari screamed in fear the first time she saw a great fishing-owl, beak and feathers splattered with glowing ink, come out of nowhere on silent wings, the first summer she came here. Like a vicious beak and reflecting eyes and a starry nebula and nothing else, she thought it was a spirit or a ghost. That got a good laugh out of Fai’ir, when she was told about it.

Lasari knows Fai’ir remembers, because she is stood by the warehouse, smirking and pointing at the owl. Lasari very deliberately does not react.

“Hey, Lasari!” Fai’ir says as they approach. She knocks her forehead against Lasari’s, then bows to Isaka. “Lady Abbess, it is an honour to see you here.”

“Sekkhet’s daughter, no?” Isaka says, wrinkles arranging themselves into a benevolent smile.

“Great-granddaughter, honoured elder,” Fai’ir says, but she is smiling. “I know we all blur together to one such as yourself.”

“You look like her,” Isaka says, then waves a hand. “We can discuss pleasantries later. Zekan, Lasari, stay out here. If he tries to peek, break his arms, Lasari.”

“At your command,” Lasari says, and bows, fist in palm. Zekan backs up from her and raises his hands, eyes wide with exaggerated fear.

“No need for that, Abbess Isaka,” he says. “I’ll stand here in silence.”

“Mm,” Isaka says, and taps one finger by her eye. "You’d better.”

They settle into place on either side of the warehouse door, and wait. Lasari’s eyes do not leave Zekan, and he fidgets in place.

“So how come you’re stuck all the way out here, huh?” he blurts. “Must be bad if your mother didn’t even keep you around to bring new blood in.”

“Ledaal Zekan,” Lasari says, calmly and slowly. “That is private house business. Or will you answer the same question, asked of you?”

“And ruin the betting pool? Never,” he says with a laugh, but his shoulders tighten. “You going to tell me what’s in there?”

“I do not know,” she says, and it is the truth. She stands completely still with arms folded in her sleeves, breath fogging in the night cold, but seems utterly unaffected.

“It’s really creeping me out, you staring like that,” he says. “You like what you see, at least?”

She blinks, and keeps staring. It is amusing, to see a mighty Dragon-blooded squirm at a little inspection. Her instructors at the Cloister of Wisdom would have beaten her blue if she fidgeted like that.

“You’re like a brick wall, Lasari,” he says, and starts pacing.

“Words wasted are a sign of improper spiritual education,” she says. “You must ask the abbess for further instruction.”

He huffs out a sigh and turns away. She carefully does not smile. The silence stretches until the door snaps open, and Isaka strides out, followed closely by Fai’ir, who locks the door behind them.

“I’ll send a letter tomorrow,” Isaka says. “You were correct in your guess, Lasari.”

Fai’ir grins wide, and Lasari cannot stop a matching smile reaching her face. Zekan hisses through his teeth in exasperation, but shuts up at a sidelong glance from the abbess. There is a splash in the distance as the great fishing-owl seizes a glowsquid.

“Come on, then,” Isaka says, finally, after she has let them celebrate a moment. “These old bones don’t like the cold. We should be getting home.”

Lasari and Isaka make the trip back in silence, but Zekan seems incapable of keeping his mouth shut. He chatters and questions and sulks when he gets no answers, and Isaka’s smug satisfaction is nearly palpable. Once they are back, Isaka fixes Zekan with a glare and a promise to never speak of this - which Lasari assumes he will break the moment he has the opportunity - and they retire to their beds.

They wake the next morning to a panicked visitor hammering on the doors.


	5. Prologue 5

By the time Lasari gets to the gate, the servants have already opened it, and let the visitor inside. It’s Auspicious Tide, a young crab fisherman from the town; Lasari knows him from his pinch-scarred arms and bone-pierced ears. He’s usually loud and laughing, sitting with the other crab fishermen and drinking, but he is sweating with exertion and fear and he is pale and shaking. He slumps onto the stool that is brought for him, and catches his breath for only a moment.

“Lasari, you need- there’s-” he begins, falling over his words. He starts to cry. “Gods, where did they come from? Ajana’s dead,” he says. “They- it’s a ship. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, and some woman came down off it and ordered us to give over the artifact! What artifact? She just… she just tore Ajana’s head off.”

He rakes a shaking hand across his face, smearing tears and sweat and dust. 

“She- she glowed. Like in the sermons. And then the man, he tried to calm her down, and he glowed too. Silver and gold.”

Lasari’s blood freezes in her veins. 

“Pirates, here?” Auspicious Tide continues, babbling as though if he stops he’ll have to let what has happened really sink in. “Pirates? What- why has this happened? Ajana, she just… she just went up to ask what the woman wanted. Didn’t even draw a weapon. Now she’s dead. Gods, did you know how much blood there is in us?”

Lasari places a hand on his shoulder, and squeezes gently, trying to ground him. 

“Breathe, young man,” she says, no sign of fear in her voice, for all it thrums in her chest. “Slow and steady. Follow me.”

She sucks in a slow, calm breath, then holds it, and out again, over and over, squeezing his shoulder in time, and he gradually copies her and stops babbling. A servant has brought over a mug of water, and is followed close behind by Isaka, who looks very disgruntled at having been awoken so early. She pauses when she sees the state Auspicious Tide is in, but it is only the smallest falter, and he is in no state to notice it.

“You told Lasari everything?” Isaka asks, not bothering with niceties. 

He nods.

“Get him some food and somewhere to rest,” she orders, and he’s quickly led away.

“He reports two suspected Anathema,” Lasari says, and her hands tremble now. “Glowing silver and gold. I didn’t get many details, but the silver killed one of the town guards, unprovoked.”

Isaka sighs, long and hard, and shuts her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again, the abbess is gone, and only the empty deep ocean remains. “They are called Anathema for a reason,” she says. “I declare a Wyld Hunt, for all the good it will do. Are you willing to join?”

Lasari is not required to; by law and custom, even the most battle-hardened of mortal Dynasts have the right of refusal. She could simply stay here, secure the temple, and follow later to offer aid and calm the townsfolk.

She does not even consider it.

“My arms are your arms, abbess,” she says. “I swore an oath to the Dragons, and I will not forsake it now.”

Isaka dips her head, and closes her eyes again. “Go gather the other three. I will need their assistance if we are to succeed.”

Lasari bows deep, clenched fists together, and hurries to wake the three other Dragon-blooded in residence. Godala staggers out of her room, obviously hungover; Zekan emerges dressed in only a sheet; and Ashak has to be dug out from under their collection of naval treatises. Their attitudes take a sharp turn when they are told what’s happening, but none of them turn and flee. Isaka gives them an hour to prepare, to drink and eat and pull on what armour and armaments they have with them. For these Dynasts, disgraced and near-abandoned, it is perhaps forty-five minutes more than they need.

Lasari shaves her head, washes carefully, and dresses in a fresh set of robes. She sharpens the edges of her tiger claws, until they cut a thread dropped against their edge, and takes them out to the courtyard. She has time, yet, so she goes through the water forms, slowly and meticulously, weapons in hand, until her thundering heart calms to its normal rhythm. This, she knows. This, she is good at. This, she can control.

It is time.

In the stories, a Wyld Hunt is called with a great speech, and liveried messengers hand over illuminated letters to the mightiest Dragon-blooded warriors in the area. They arrive in full panoply, arrayed in jade, armed with heirloom daiklaives. They are always a perfect Hearth, one of each element, and bound by oath and blood. They set out from a gilded manse on their purebred horses, and ride across verdant grasslands without getting dusty.

The truth is this: there are four scared children and one old woman. There are two Water, one Air, and one Wood, and none of them would swear to another even now. They are dressed in worn silk and furs, and they have steel weapons, save for Lasari, who wears cotton, and Isaka, who wields blue jade. The only fighters are a mortal and an old woman, though the other three know at least the basics.

It will have to be enough. There is no speech.

Isaka simply nods to them and begins to walk, and the rest of them trail after her. They walk through the forest in silence, all of them taut as bowstrings, until they reach the edge of the forest, and stare down at the town, and the ocean beyond it. Fog covers the water halfway to the horizon, and stops exactly at the shore. 

“By all the Dragons,” Zakan gasps. 

“No, the Dragons didn’t do that,” Isaka says softly. “Mujjit has betrayed his oath.” She spits on the ground and intertwines her knobbly fingers in a condemning mudra. “I swear that if I survive this, he will not live to Calibration.”

“You want us to fight a god?” Ashak says, visibly shaken. 

“Hah! The god isn’t the worry,” Isaka says. “It’s the Anathema. Two at once is a bad sign, but I’ve slain Anathema before. You’re all Dynasts, aren’t you? Will you straighten your spines or will you cower like boys?”

Lasari knows that the situation is nowhere near as simple as Isaka is making it sound; two Anathema are certainly bad news, but a pair in gold and silver are worse than that. She has read the records, and knows the names of dozens of Dragon-blooded slain by such a pair. Perhaps they are lucky, and this pair are new to their powers, brash and impulsive and acting before they know better. Mortals have slain Anathema before, in rare cases, when the Dragons have guided their hands, but it normally takes a Hearth of Dragon-blooded and luck.

They have no Hearth, and they would not be here if they were lucky.

They descend regardless. Godala starts reciting death poetry, delicate flowery verse hiding the brutal truth within, and Zakan fidgets with his spear. Ashak’s face is slick with fear-sweat, but they adjust their swords and keep pace.

Lasari whispers prayers to the Five Dragons, to protect and guide them. There are a set of prayers specifically for the Wyld Hunt, and they are grim. They ask for bloody swords and shattered shields and heads to hang from saddles. 

They ask to be allowed to die on your feet, face to the enemy.

Isaka prays, too, loud and with a pressure that is not entirely imaginary. Backs straighten, furrowed brows ease, and fists clench. They reach the town in silence, and pass through empty streets. Terrified eyes peek out from behind shutters, and Lasari can hear weeping form behind more than one closed door. Finally, they near the docks. Half the town is there, it seems, surrounding the area but not close enough to be targeted. A galleon wallows just off shore, broadside on, and it’s a beast of a ship, one that could take on a Realm navy vessel and come out the victor. It looks old, too, ancient and well-preserved. She feels the fear rise at the realisation that this ship may have been made before the Realm existed.

A woman leans against the railing of the ship, tall and muscular and proud, glowing silver tattoos marking out abstract pattens on her bare arms, a full silver circle obvious on her forehead. She looks frustrated with the situation. Next to her, on the deck, sits the second Anathema, a young man with an empty golden circle, containing a dot, on his forehead. He stares out at the town, eyes glowing, and lifts a hand to wave at the approaching Dragon-blooded.

Ajana is there, dead on the dockside, torn in half at the chest. There’s so much blood, black and sticky in the sun. Lasari’s grip on her weapons tightens.

“Perhaps we can avoid any further unpleasantness?” the man calls, once they are near enough to hear him. 

The docks themselves are empty of anything but crab-pots and rope coils and that awful, awful lump that used to be a friend. They are exposed out there, but they are also unlikely to cause collateral damage.

“This is a waste of our time,” the woman says, voice dull and deep. “I give my last warning to you, Seeker.”

“What’s the harm in talking?” the man says, his voice carrying.

“To exchange words with Anathema is to be corrupted by them,” Lasari whispers to herself. “Daana’d guide my blades.”

Isaka stops, halfway to the ship, and the rag-tag Wyld Hunt stops beside her. “We will treat with you, boy, if you come down here to talk.”

“Even now they try to lure you in to a trap, Seeker,” the woman says, glowering at Isaka. “I do not think you an imbecile. Yet.”

“Will you not protect me, Kala?” Seeker asks, and gives her a crooked smile. “We haven’t come so far by doing things your way. You have to extend trust to receive it.”

“They think us demons,” Kala says. “Our breath is evil to them. We must slay them and retrieve the artifact. There’s no point to you risking your life here.”

Godala squeezes Isaka’s wrist twice. “On my mark,” she says quietly.

“All I’m saying is-”

“Now.”

It starts with perfect clarity. Two hulking figures manifest from thin air behind Seeker, seize him in huge shaggy arms, and throw him as hard as they can towards the docks. Isaka leaps, so hard she shatters cobblestones, and blurs through the air towards Kala. Kala turns and tears the blood-red gorillas to pieces in a torrent of protean flesh. Isaka lands on the railing and her blue jade tiger claws descend, an endless crashing assault that puts Kala on the back foot.

Lasari blinks.

Seeker lands, having turned his uncontrolled tumble into an elegant glide. Lasari is there to meet him, her own claws ready, and his face twists in panic just before the blades catch him at the jaw and slice half his face to bloody ribbons. It seems even the Anathema have limits. She loses the rest of the battle, then, concentrating on her target; he is not so easy to strike now that he properly fears her. Fisherman Spears His Prey flows into Eddies Undercut Banks which transitions to Carp Leaps Waterfall, a stab to a looping trip to a vicious uppercut, but she only catches his clothes. He staggers back, clutching his face, and she sees fear in his one open eye. He turns and runs, and before she can catch him he has taken a long arcing leap which lands on the ocean, and then he keeps running, across the water’s surface.

The next thing Lasari knows, her vision is filled with a great, many-hooked tentacle, which slaps across her chest and sends her flying into the stone wall of the nearest building. She feels things crack and shatter and tear, white-hot and cold and everything spins, but there is no pain. She blacks out to the sound of thunderous cannon fire.

Lasari wakes to agony. The world has changed in her absence, and all that remains of the dockside is shattered wood and fire and blood. She is half-propped on a stone, but she cannot move enough to take in anything more. She cannot move at all. She tries, but her arms do not obey her, her legs betray her, her neck refuses. Her chest feels like someone has filled it with burning splinters. Her breath comes strained and weak. The first thought is that this is not real, that she is dreaming or unconscious, but the pain is all too real. Someone has packed her throat with mud, and it burbles in her ears when she breathes. She can smell only red, and taste only steel. 

She knows she is dying.

She tries to move again, panic granting her another shot of adrenaline, but all she achieves is tipping herself over. She cannot even scream. She stares out at the ocean, and thinks of how blue it is, in the morning sun. The fog is gone. 

She has always wanted to be Water.

She blacks out.

She wakes, choking and gagging, hot blood running down her throat, cold creeping into her limbs.

She cannot believe her eyes, but across the battlefield walks a girl. A child that could have been her cousin, her sister, her aunt. Ragged red hair and skin so pale her veins show through it. Her dress is tattered black, the fashion of centuries past.

The child looks so sad. She picks her way through the bodies and the rubble like a pallid stork, careful, bobbing strides bringing her ever-closer.

“Oh, but it always hurts,” she whispers, kneeling down to cradle Lasari’s head in her lap. Tears drip down her face, falling cold onto Lasari’s cheeks. “I can’t help you in this. It breaks my heart, every time.”

Lasari gets no colder, but the blood still fills her throat and the ice still fills her fingers.

“You don’t have to be brave for me. You don’t have to hold back,” the child continues, slow and sorrowful. “In death, we are all undone. You should have been a mighty warrior,” the child says, still weeping. “A poet, a musician, a dancer. You should have had the life you wanted. But it always fails us, doesn’t it? Life.”

Her eyes, pale grey irises around too-dark pupils, seem to fill Lasari’s vision. Her voice echoes strangely, and Lasari feels no peace. Just the pain and the cold and the choking blood.

“I mourn for all the living,” the child whispers, rocking Lasari gently back and forth. “The world is broken, Peleps Lasari. It has failed you. It has failed your companions. It will fail countless millions more.”

Lasari coughs blood into the child’s face, and she just lets her tears wash it away.

“This is all it is, in the end,” she says, voice breaking, and hikes Lasari up so she can see the devastation. 

The glittering buildings are tumbled and broken. Godala’s head is lying atop a half-ruined wall, staring at the sky. The rest of her is in a heap twenty metres away. The abbess is slumped, and Lasari can see straight through the hole in her chest.

It should be raining.

“Everyone dies, Lasari,” the child continues, interlacing icy fingers with her own. She can barely feel it. “Everyone dies. The world is broken, and it breaks us all in turn. It broke them. It has broken you. It broke me.”

Lasari sobs through the pain, at last, overwhelmed. The fires do not move. The smoke does not rise. This moment is endless, and she cannot die.

“But we both know the truth, do we not? We were broken before we were full grown. Not by death. Never by death. Death would be a sweet release,” she continues. “To return to the cycle of reincarnation, to be born anew in a better life? That would be wonderful.”

She buries her face in Lasari’s shoulder, still weeping. Her voice is muffled.

“But even death is broken.”

Lasari sobs again, pain and fear and that tiny worm of doubt wriggling in her brain.

“Death is broken, and we cannot move on. We live eternal in death. Why won’t it end?”

The child keeps weeping, rocking Lasari as though she is the forlorn infant.

“Why? The world is broken, and life is broken, and death is broken. Who did this to us? How can we make it stop?”

She sobs harder, voice raw and ragged, and Lasari cannot hold back the tears any longer.

“I hate it. I hate it all. If the world will not be fixed, then it must be _ended_. If death cannot be fixed, then that, too must end!” the child screams, and it flays her nerve endings just to hear it. “The Anathema did this to us! They broke the world! They broke death! I hate them! I hate it all!”

The child pants, breathless, and takes a moment to compose herself.

“But I love you, Lasari. I love all who live, and all who die, and all who are broken,” she says, so soft and tender Lasari almost believes it, that this strange apparition really does care. “You should have been a great warrior, unmatched in skill. I have seen it in the stars that do not shine, in the sky that is not, where all the fates that are broken weave in endless void. You should have been Exalted. Instead, the world is broken and murderers and thieves can do _this_!”

She gestures to the battlefield once more. The townsfolk are so badly mangled that Lasari cannot distinguish one corpse from the next. Zekan’s arms are twisted like dishcloths, and the dust at his feet tells the story of his death throes. He did not go quickly. Even Ashak found their courage, and was destroyed for it.

“But there are forces that put their thumbs on the scales, and so we must press down harder. I am dead, and you will be dead the moment we finish. But we live eternal in death,” she says, poison dripping from her words. “We live eternal in death, and there are ways to make you more than you were in life. Exaltation in death. All I ask, all that I have ever wanted, is that you help me end this.”

Lasari’s tears dry up. Her sobs rattle in her chest, but she is shocked to silence. This must be a trick. A last hallucination.

“I do not lie, Lasari. The Weeping Daughter does not lie, for the truths I speak are worse than any falsehood. The offer is true, and the wishes are true, and the Exaltation is true. You will die. It cannot be prevented. But I love the dead, and the broken, and the living, and you are all of them at once. I want you to walk with me, to be my sword and hand, and to be what you were always denied in life.”

She pauses, and tilts Lasari’s head to meet her eyes once more. Lasari know, deeper than anything she has ever know, that this is true. All of this is true.

“All you have to do is agree,” the child says, quiet enough Lasari has to strain to hear her. 


	6. Prologue End

The world is broken? She knows that.

She knew that when she was five, when she was told that to love your child is a sin. When she discovered that the woman who had raised her had been paid to do so, and that she was leaving, without a word.

She knew it when she was ten, and she was rewarded for tormenting other children.

She knew it when she was fifteen, and she was tormented.

She knew it when she was twenty, and her life was ended, because she did not Exalt.

She knew it when she was twenty-five, when she was sent out of her mother’s sight for a crime she did not even commit.

She knows it at thirty, when she walked towards death with fear in her heart.

She has seen cowardly children breathe fire, and snivelling brats walk on water. She has done everything right, all her life, and been punished for it. The model daughter, the obedient mortal, the perfect monk. She doesn’t regret it, but she resents it.

Why were others chosen before her? Why did she have to be the one who failed? Didn’t she work hard? Didn’t she excel? She met and exceeded every expectation except the one that mattered, the one she had no control over, and so her life was ended before it even began. 

Death is almost a relief. 

But that almost is what digs its teeth in and bites down. Why should she accept death? She has been condemned to mediocrity in life, though no choice of her own, and now she is given a choice.

She has always wanted to be Water.

The waves do not move, frozen in perfection. Foam-frosted at the shoreline, pristine. 

She will never be Water. She knows it, has known it for longer than she can remember, but some part of her is still that terrified five-year-old, waking up and finding an empty room where her nanny used to be. She clings to familiarity.

She has always wanted to be Water, but more than that, she has always wanted to be Exalted. She has watched failure after failure come into their blood, and buried the anger and resentment deeper and deeper every time. It is a rotted, grasping thing, that lives in her chest; something she has always wanted dead, but which lives as long as she does. Now she knows it will live beyond that.

Above all, she hates it. The whole corrupt edifice that has put her under its boot and ground down. She could have accepted it if she had done something, if she had caused it through a choice of her own. But it has always been someone else, someone with power, making choices for her. 

It’s time she starts to make choices of her own.

And now? She chooses to be Exalted.

The Weeping Daughter smiles though her tears, and presses a frozen kiss to Peleps Lasari’s forehead.

Peleps Lasari dies.

_Once_   
_There was a girl._

_She was not brave, and she was not strong,_   
_Her body was weak and her hands trembled._   
_She was lashed with fire and stones._   
_Illness took root in her lungs._   
_No-one helped her._

_She died alone._

_Now_   
_There is a girl._

_She was not brave_   
_And she was not strong_   
_But she had a broken soul._   
_She turned the pieces into blades and_   
_She cut away pieces of herself_   
_Until_   
_Only_   
_Hate_   
_Remained._


	7. The Collected Works of Sek Vashal I: On Ghosts I

[In thick red ink, across the top of the paper: NEEDS WORK, SEK.]

_From the collected works of Sek Vashal, Chronicler to the Weeping Daughter_

Congratulations on choosing to improve your knowledge of our benighted state, dear reader. In this piece, I will elaborate on the nature of ghosts and the ways in which they may increase in power and stability. Keep an eager eye out for my next work in the series, available from all reputable merchants soon! 

What is a ghost? Many people ask me this, when I walk the lands of the living as an exorcist and scholar. The answer varies from culture to culture, place to place and time to time. If you had asked me three hundred years ago, I would have given you one answer; today, I give you another.

A ghost is what remains when the body is dead. A simple answer, but a true one. 

Why are ghosts? That’s a trickier question, and one I do not know the real answer to. My lady tells me that we exist because the path to reincarnation is clogged with the uncorpses of those never born, deathless things that were killed despite the impossibility. Others claim we linger due to some grudge or passion; I think, perhaps, the truth lies somewhere else. I certainly had no driving passions nor bitter enmity upon death, merely a sense of being mildly inconvenienced. It may be, however, that both are true at once. Most ghosts, I have found, are little more than mist; they drift, insubstantial even in the Underworld, and seem aimless and mindless. They can be directed and trained, with no little effort, but are, for the purposes of this work, unimportant.

So how, then, do ghosts such as myself and, dare I suggest, my lady come to be? To understand this, you must understand how a ghost becomes more powerful, for personal power and psychological acuity are intrinsically linked amongst the dead. There are four rough categories which dictate how powerful a ghost is: passion, worship, sacrifice and consumption.

Worship is the simplest category, though even this is more complex than the worship given to gods. It can be gathered in the normal way, through mortals and the dead alike praying and offering gifts to the ghost in question. It can also be gathered by becoming feared. If one is whispered of in dark nights, if one is passed around the campfire to thrill and scare, then that, too, is worship. In this way even mindless ghosts can become powerful, attaching themselves to legend by accident and glutting on the runoff worship, and so, in turn, regain some mental capacity. Such ghosts are to be treated with caution and respect. [See also: _On Regional Folklore_ Vol. I through XXIV (Sek Vashal)]

Sacrifice, too, is relatively simple. The ghost must simply give up something of intense personal value, and cast it into the Well of the Void. What is at the bottom, none know, for to descend is to never return. One does not need to be physically present at the Well to perform the sacrifice, but it is highly recommended. The greatest sacrifice one can offer is memory, for there is something hungry in the deeps that longs for it. A common sacrifice is the name one died under; it grants significant power and binds one closer to the essence of death itself. [See also: _A Study On The Well Of The Void_ (Sek Vashal) and _A Travelogue: Stygia_ Vol. III (Sek Vashal)]

Consumption is as it sounds; one can increase in power through eating. By devouring the corpus and Essence of other ghosts, one can easily grow in Essence and corpus in turn. This is an intensely challenging path to walk, however, as one must first have a sufficient supply of ghosts, and then must be able to overcome them for long enough to eat. Further, by taking in foreign Essence and corpus, the ghost’s own are destabilised. Last, and most relevant, is that this path grows ever more challenging as the practitioner grows in strength. Doubling one’s Essence when one is barely a candle requires another candle; when one is already a raging bonfire, the candle means nothing. Most ghosts are candles, in this analogy. Worse, one must always beware the hungry ghost trying to steal a bite of you; if a candle seizes from a bonfire, it burns intensely brightly, albeit briefly. [See also: _How Much Is Too Much? A Meditation On Necrocannabilism_ (Sek Vashal)]

~~I wonder - if these things clogging death truly exist, what would their Essence be like? What would consuming even the tiniest part of one do?~~

Passion is the only area I must caution my reader against in the strongest possible terms. It may be considered willpower, or intensity, but the truth path to power here is through impossible madness. The deeper the emotion one feels, the purer, the more powerful one can become. I am aware that my own power comes, in part, from my love of scholarship and research, but this is a meagre dribble. The true masters of this path only ever feel a single emotion, as intensely as they possibly can, forever. Infernos of rage. Bottomless pits of hate. They do not, cannot, think; they only act. If you, dear reader, ever encounter a ghost obsessed in such a way, pray you do not attract their attention. You may be able to defeat it, but it will not stop until destroyed.

Thus, we come to how the more powerful and cognisant amongst the dead arise. Walking any of the four paths grants power, and with it clarity, but it is in combination that they truly come into their full potential. I, myself, am the subject of several small cults, and there is a rather amusing anecdote about a library that involves my presence, for worship. I have also sacrificed my birth name and death name to the Well of the Void, and am sustained in part by my passion for my work. As anyone reading my works can tell, I am a ghost of moderate power and high intelligence, with a very stable and defined personality. Every other ghost I know who has a similar level of ability has a similar tale. From this, we can determine that a balanced power base is likely the best path to pursue.

Of course, this leaves the greatest question of all: how do Deathlords come to be? Certainly, all of them are worshipped widely; one can assume that they have offered great sacrifices, too. I have personally seen my lady devour a thousand ghosts in a single breath, and her passions run deep and true. But I have met other ghosts with similar tales, and though they are powerful, they do not compare to the Deathlords. There is a secret there, and not one any of them are eager to share, for good reason.

It would be remiss of me to ignore the other exception to the rules of ghosts: the Deathknights. They are not truly ghosts, as we understand the term; they are, as far as I can tell, closer to a possessed corpse. I have not, yet, convinced one to allow me to dissect it, but hope springs eternal. They are sealed to their bodies by the Deathlord they serve, and through some secret mechanism they are granted Exaltation. I suspect that the Exaltation serves as a form of spiritual ‘glue’, holding the ghost and the body together where normally they would separate. They are certainly dead, and cannot respire Essence while in Creation, nor do they need to eat, drink, or breathe, but they do not rot or degrade the way a normal possessed corpse would. They can gather power the same way ghosts do, however, and it is my understanding that the sacrifice of their death name is used to catalyse their creation.

~~Or so my lady tells me; how much truth she speaks on a given day is impossible to tell. She claims she never lies, but the things she says are so outrageous it is hard to believe that.~~

In any case, one should not focus on the exceptions. If you, dear reader, seek to grow in both power and knowledge, you are perusing the correct series of scrolls. The next piece in the series, On Ghosts II, should be available from all reputable merchants within ~~three~~ seven Calibrations!

All praise the Weeping Daughter, whose tears wash away the sorrows of the dead.

Sek Vashal.  
_Chronicler to the Weeping Daughter, One of Thirteen._


	8. Chapter 1: Nameless

_Arise, my Midnight. Seek my agents in the West._

Her eyes snap open, and then shut again involuntarily at the sting of salt water. She comes back to herself, settles into her body like an old robe that she’s worn long enough it fits her almost perfectly. She is wrapped and bound, something pressed down on her, and her mouth and eyes filled with salt water. She sucks in an involuntary breath, filling her lungs with ocean, but it does not hurt; it does not hinder her. She struggles against her bindings, muscles and cloth and rope alike creaking with the exertion, until something snaps and tears and suddenly she is floating free, only the drag of the canvas shroud restraining her now. 

She is not deep; light filters through the waves overhead, and long seaweeds grasp towards the sun around her. She kicks towards the surface, fighting against the shroud, and breaches it with no small effort. The shore is only a few hundred metres away, and she has always been a strong swimmer. With every forceful exhalation, water jets from her mouth, and with every inhalation her lungs bubble and groan. The sand under her feet is coarse and sharp as she staggers up the beach to collapse above the tide.

She is not cold. It seems impossible, lying on the northern beach in sea-drenched clothes, but she feels no chill on her skin. She rolls onto her back and stares at the sky, tracking the wispy high clods that scud across the heavens. She is here. She grasps a handful of the sharp sand and squeezes until it breaks skin, the pain and blood grounding her. She is here.

She is dead, but she is here.

She sits up after a long few minutes of silent contemplation, and takes stock. She is dressed in the robes she died in, tattered and torn and bloodstained. She has a cord passed through her septum, the last stitch performed for a sea burial to make sure the deceased is truly dead; she snaps the cord and pulls it free with a wince. Her canvas shroud is plain and undecorated, but questing fingers find Fai-ir’s favourite earrings in her earlobe, and there is a soggy wreath of flowers around her neck. She should be offended, that they ignored her blood and right and did not cremate her, but she knows it is not that. They loved and respected her, so they sent her off as one of their own, with gifts and care. She cries for a few moments, alone on that beach, as everything comes crashing in and she fully understands what she has done. 

She is dead, but she did not move on.

The sun makes her wince, and only the shadow of the shroud, pulled over her like a cloak, can push away that pain. She sits there for almost an hour, staring out at the ocean and processing what has happened to her. She doesn’t feel Exalted. She doesn’t feel much at all, not the cold air on her skin or the heat of the sun on her face. She can feel something, though, something deep and dark and solemn, nestled in her chest and stomach where once a beating heart lay. She has felt Essence before, in blazing fire and rushing water and trembling earth, but she has never felt this. It is almost the absence of something, except she knows it is not that, because she has felt the absence of Essence, has lived it for thirty years, and it does not feel tangible the way this does.

She stands, bare feet gripping the sand with clenched toes, throws off her shroud, and takes a ready stance. The sun hurts, now, but she can live with pain. She begins her forms, and marvels as they push Essence the way they are supposed to. A leaping axe-kick takes her four metres into the air, hits the beach, and leaves a crater blasted out of the sand a metre deep. Clawed fingers swoop through a series of lightning-fast slashes, and she moves faster than she ever thought possible. It is not the way they are used by the Dragon-blooded, but even this strange Essence is Essence, and it moves much the same. She shifts her motions as she goes through the techniques, accommodating the differences, until she is comfortable with the way she moves. 

She’s been smiling so wide it hurts the whole time.

She finishes, back in her ready stance, but it is different now. Looser, calmer, more open. She never realised how tense she had always been until this moment, how much she was holding herself back. Death has freed her, and it forces a laugh from her at the thought; she’d always half-believed that would be the case. She’d just never thought she would survive death to know the difference. She has left everything behind, and can start again, a new woman. She can even choose a new name, one not bound to centuries of oppression and pain and the endless war between those who bear it. 

Even thinking it makes her stumble, now. That name is dead, and the woman who bore it went into the ocean wrapped in canvas with a stitch through her nose to make sure she was dead, too.

She looks around again, for the first time taking in her surroundings properly. The coast stretches off in both directions, pale sand and stranded seaweed and washed-up, gnarled wood. Behind her, the land rises in tall granite cliffs, those gold-flecked rocks she loved so much present here as well. She can see the tips of pine trees peeking over the lip of the cliff, and they are not as snow-dusted as the ones by the monastery. If she was buried just away form the town, the currents would have washed her down towards Fajad, but she does not know how long she was in the ocean. She listens to the wind, tracks the sun with a stick and some stones, and tastes the ocean; she can, at least, fix directions in her mind. To get to Fajad she will need to head south.

And she has to get to Fajad, if she wants to follow her new mistress’ request. No-one can take the Western Ocean in anything less than a deepwater ship, and from Fajad she can book passage to Wu-Jian; from there, she can get most places further West.

The only problem is that she is penniless and completely alone. She’s never had to earn money, never cared about it or learned about it, either. She can sail a ship and navigate by stars, but she cannot ask for wages or find a job. 

Well. She has to face one problem at a time, she supposes. She wraps her shroud around her shoulders, and sighs at the relief from the pain of the sun, ties it off at the neck with the cord from her nose, and starts climbing up the cliff to get a better view of the place she’s found herself. It’s remarkably easy, that dark Essence fuelling her muscles to propel her five metres a push, and soon she finds herself at the top, surrounded by pine forest and birdsong and with bleeding hands and feet that do not hurt anywhere near as much as they should.

She aligns herself to the south, and starts walking.


	9. Chapter 1: Wreck

Wisdom Drowns The Faithless Penitent enters Fajad as the sun sets, after four exhausting days of travel through hilly pine forest, taiga-turned-swamp, and an underwater walk across the strait separating Jazrafel, the island Fajad occupies, from the mainland . Her shroud is mud-stained and starting to tatter around the edges, and her clothes are no better; for all that she can jump three times the height of a man and punch through trees, she cannot walk on water for more than a pair of steps, or pass through thick brush without catching her clothes on it. She’s been able to see the Needle, the mile-high spire of solid rock in the centre of Fajad, for the past two days, but it has only taunted her; no matter how long she walked, it seemed to get no larger. 

The heavy wooden gates are gilded with abstract patterns, and they are wide open as she approaches, just one of the stream of peasants and beggars washing through the city. She keeps her hood up and her head down as she passes through. There is an Immaculate temple here, and many other Dragon-blooded to boot. She has no desire to run into an acquaintance or a relative. She lets the crowd dictate her footsteps, following the flow through the merchant quarters near the gate and down towards the docks, where taverns and brothels and less-savoury establishments spill light into the approaching dusk. 

Realm naval vessels wallow next to merchant carracks and hundreds of smaller fishing boats. It smells like salt and fish and rotting seaweed, with the strong undertone of burning blood and hair that fills the entire city. Fajad rests on the back of a buried monster, and the entire city stinks of its body. The wagons that, even now, carry barrels filled with its blood and lymph and other, stranger fluids do not help with the smell, which grows stronger as they pass. She stares out at the ships, noting down in her head which ones look like they take passengers, and which to avoid if she wants to get to her destination.

There are a few likely suspects, but she is in no condition to approach a captain at the moment. She is filthy and dishevelled and, even if she were clean, she has no money. She has also not slept for the past four days, and, while she feels she could go longer without rest, she is still tired. She has been too focused to stop, and too worried about what will happen when she closes her eyes to dare it. She can go a little longer, though, and does not want to try to sleep in the city. She is here for a reason. Money and passage. She has to remember that, through the noise of the crowd and the stink of life all around her, deafening and choking. 

She pushes through to the waterfront itself, and stares out at the ocean. No people under the water, not here, but she knows there is a god who claims the area. Her best bet is to head out along the shipping lanes until she finds some cargo worth bringing back to the surface, or a strongbox full of jade or silver. She scowls. She has never wanted to concern herself with money. It is a sin against the Dragons to covet it. She may be dead, and half her faith proclaimed a lie, but she cannot shake it off with only a thought. 

Her ears filled with the raucous partying of sailors and her mouth with the stink of the living city, she turns around and leaves. The gates are just about to shut, but the guards are eager to see a beggar out of the city and herd her and a mob of others away with sharp blows from the butts of their spears. The others set themselves down just outside the walls, the downtrodden and the poor ignored now that they are out of sight, and Drowned Wisdom feels sick at the sight of it. The world is broken. She knows this, but every time she sees more proof it dries another splinter into her. 

She hurries away, slips beneath the waves and hides herself amongst the seaweed and the rocks, tucked into a cave that is little more than a crack in the seafloor she noticed on her trip across the strait. She closes her eyes, and lets herself rest, weightless. She does not dream. She wakes, no more rested than when she closed her eyes, and begins her search in the light of the morning sun, filtered through the water until it is barely more than a glow. 

She fills her lungs with water and her robes with stones, so that she can stay on the seafloor more easily, and walks the route that hundreds of ships follow every year. It is slow and tedious and with every day she spends, getting deeper and deeper, ever further from the sun, she gets ever more tired. Fish shoal overhead and whales sing hundreds of kilometres away and strange, many-legged things squirm past her knees, but she finds nothing for more than a week. She has to fight off an overly-inquisitive shark at one point, and leaves it with broken teeth and a missing eye, a fair trade for a wound to her side that gapes open now, half a hundred neat slits carved into her back and abdomen, not bleeding but not healing, either. 

She is a corpse, and she is never allowed to forget it. 

The first find she makes, ten days in, is a small, fast caravel, broken in two against a low bank of sediment. It must have been down there for decades, at least, and she is not optimistic about her chances, but it is a good sign. She makes her way to it, in those long, arcing jump-steps she has grown so used to, leaving little plumes of sediment in her wake, and enters through the break. The ceilings are so low she has to keep herself bent almost in two, as she pushes her way past slimy tube worms and razor-edged shellfish, carefully negotiates around crabs waving warning pincers as big as her fist, and explores the vessel.

It was carrying something intensely valuable on a weight-to-money scale, and perishable, she determines. Probably an exotic food, judging by the barrels now filled with dead shells and the crates empty of anything but seawater. The crew quarters hold only an irate eel, twice as long as she is tall, and she has to wrap dead hands around it and break it in seven places to get past. Her grip is implacable and the eel does not even manage to bite her. She barely notices the fight. The captain’s cabin brings more disappointments. The desk is half-rotted and the drawers filled with the mushy remnants of papers and maps. The safe is rusted open, a gaping void that was probably emptied before the ship even sank. 

She sighs, water into water, and keeps walking.

It takes three more wrecks and another ten days before she finds something worth all the effort. A pleasure cruiser, massive and elaborate, sitting pretty on the sea bed, almost as though it is about to lift up and sail away on the surface. The wood itself is inlaid with gold and gems, and those alone would probably net her enough to book passage, but she holds off. Something like this would carry passengers who could never be seen in public without their own body weight in jewellery.

She sets foot on the main deck, and is immediately beset by something invisible. It opens a rent in her shoulder and slashes open her cheek, but she circulates that black Essence to her eyes and it snaps into clear focus. A thing of many chitinous legs and hundreds of waving whiskers, knife-edged claws and a thousand empty black eyes, stares at her, and her shredded flesh dangles from one of those claws. She grips the deck with her toes and forms her hands into blades, fingers clamped tight together and thumbs tucked against the palm. They exchange the next flurry in the space of a breath, and now that she can see this sea-floor elemental she can fight it on even terms. Essence edges her fingers, letting her touch and sever and tear at the thing, and she rips free six legs and a dozen whiskers with precise, merciless strikes. She takes a crushing blow to the chest in exchange, and it sends her reeling backwards with a flash of remembered agony. 

She grits her teeth through the rage and descends upon it with the fury of a tidal wave. It comes apart in gouts of ghost-white sediment and a glut of Essence, and she opens her mouth wide to suck the power right out of the water. She feels more awake than she has in weeks, refreshed and ready to take on another foe, despite her arm hanging half-severed and her smile that reaches all the way to her ear on one side. 

More elementals stir, and she smiles even wider.

She emerges from the ocean a week and a half later, her robes little more than rags, her shroud re-purposed into a sack. Her once-shaved head is now covered in a short tangle of dark blue hair. She is carrying enough money to make a Dynast green with envy, her own severed arm, and the pride of a successful mission. She needs someone to sew her back together, new clothes, and passage to Wu-Jian.


	10. Chapter 1: Passage

It is an involved process, what she wants from Fajad. First, she has to hide her new wealth - and her arm - back underwater, pinned down with a rock to keep it from washing away, in the cave she rested in her first night there. Then she has to take a handful of silver, hide it in her chest wrappings, and enter the city as a beggar once more, with half her head wrapped in strips of cloth to hide the damage. She has to go from one low-society shop to another, gradually working her way up the chain until she is wearing clothes that won’t get her instantly sneered at or spat upon; simple and coarsely woven, but good enough to fit in amongst the normal residents. This takes her an entire day, and she spends the whole time with a throbbing headache from the sun and the press of people, but she forces a smile and a polite attitude despite it. 

That is just enough to get her to the point that she can rent a room in one of the shabbier inns on the dockside. She spends three nights camped out in various bars, talking to people and spreading a little money around, getting to know the locals and feeling out who to avoid and who to approach. She is seeking people to be avoided, really, because they are the ones who will have the information she needs. It’s an old, rusty set of skills, working a room and acting like she’s one of them, but she’s been taught how to blend in as a monk, and it’s not so different, in the end. She gets more sympathy for her missing arm and her bandaged face than she is expecting, but she doesn’t appreciate the comments about her marriageability. Death has given her no more interest in that sort of thing than she had in life. Her headaches don’t improve, but she enjoys the company when they aren’t propositioning her. 

She finally manages to get into contact with a local organisation, a gang of pickpockets, racketeers and leg-breakers who operate in the warren of twisty alleys and side-streets behind the dockside. She knows it will take her a while to get into their good graces, so she begins her other plans at the same time she starts trying to ingratiate herself with them.

First, she retrieves more of the money and visits some seamstresses. She has measurements taken, cloth ordered, and robes stitched, ready for collection when she deigns to appear. No questions asked except for payment, and that she delivers in advance, with extra for silence. Not so much that the buying of silence itself is suspicious, of course, but enough to keep mouths shut. This, at least, she is fairly well versed in; no Dynast is allowed to not learn how to give and take appropriate bribes. She also gets hold of departure manifests for the ships willing to carry passengers, and works through her options while the sun burns overhead, spending her nights lurking in dark alleys and gossipping with criminals. 

They are reluctant to give her any information, at first. She finds that the dark pulse of Essence in her chest can be woven into her words, with a little effort, and those words dig into her target’s brain like maggots, laying eggs that hatch into bad ideas and poor decisions. It doesn’t make them do anything that they might not do anyway, but it certainly gives them a little push. Her forehead bleeds through her bandages sometimes, leaving a rusty stain across half her face, but that just makes her look either more terrifying or more pitiful. Either way, she manages to slither deep enough into their confidences that they point her to a trustworthy chirurgeon. 

She shows up at their house the next night. They are a stick-thin, nervous individual, with long spidery fingers and too-large eyes, and they watch Drowned Wisdom with apprehension as they serve her tea.

“I am told you are the best person to talk to if I require discreet surgery,” she says, fingers wrapped around the hot mug. She does not drink.

“Yes,” they say. “I do… business… with a few people.”

“I will pay triple your normal rates for absolute silence,” she says.

They gulp, and their spidery fingers clench into fists. “Alright. I- I can definitely do that.”

Drowned Wisdom places a bag of silver on the table, and it hits the wood with a very heavy thud. “Absolute silence. Tell me if you need more money, but be aware that this is a one-time payment.”

“Oh, I know, uh- I know better than to try anything like that, I assure you,” they say. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

She retrieves her arm from the bag by her chair and sets it on the table in front of her. The chirurgeon stares at it.

“That’s a dead arm,” they say. 

“Can you reattach it properly?”

“Yes, but- it’ll kill you, or just rot right off, if you’re lucky,” they say, looking at her as though she is mad. Perhaps she is.

In reply, Drowned Wisdom unwraps her head. The wound marring her cheek is still there, still as fresh and unbleeding as the moment it was inflicted. It has not healed. It has not rotted. The chirurgeon stares.

“There are more like this,” Drowned Wisdom says. “I need them stitched up enough to be presentable, at least. Better, if you can manage it.”

“I- alright. What’s wrong with you? Is it infectious?”

She pauses for a moment, then smiles. “Only in the sense that everyone gets it in the end,” she says. “But you are not at risk of it, do not fear.” And she twists her Essence into those words, lets them sink in, lets them squirm around in their brain for a while. 

The chirurgeon nods, pale-faced.

The procedure is, against all expectations, nothing but boring. The arm is reattached, neat stitches connecting muscles together on the inside, glue on the bone, and even smaller stitches around the skin. She can feel it and move it the moment it’s pressed against the stump, which nearly makes the chirurgeon jump out of their skin, but they are a professional and they do a good job. She knows they have deep debts, from a gambling habit and a flirtation with drugs, and they are not as skilled as the best she could afford. But they are discreet, and that is worth more than money and pretty fixes. She is left with black thread across every wound, keeping her closed and more presentable; she’s not going to be winning any beauty contests, but she is functional. She flexes her arm and moves it through its usual breadth of movement, and she is satisfied. She leaves another bag of silver on the table.

She collects her robes the next day, and, once she is clad in funereal white, her headaches ease a little. The robes cover her from chin to ankle, and the relief she gets from wearing them is worth all the funny looks she gets. They contrast her sun-starved brown skin in an unflattering manner, making her seem sickly and sallow, but she doubts that anything would really fix that; she’s certainly not willing to bother with makeup. At least, with the stitching and the new growth of her hair and her new pallor she is less likely to be recognised. 

It’s almost insultingly easy, booking passage to Wu-Jian after all of that effort. The Guild vessel she chooses will get her there in under two weeks, far faster than her other options. She’s already spent too long here, almost forty days all told, and she wants to get as far away from the monastery as possible. Her family will know what has happened by now, and a new Wyld Hunt will be coming through in search of evidence. A real Wyld Hunt, this time, and one that will question the townsfolk and read the air and taste the earth and chase two Anathema across Creation.

She does not want them to chase three.

So she packs up what is left of her salvaged wealth and her spare robes and the pair of fine steel tiger claws she purchased into a neat leather case, hefts it on her shoulder, and walks out into the sunrise to catch her ship.


	11. Chapter 1: Ocean

The ship she has booked passage on is large and sleek, made of fine oak and with three masts. She has a cabin all her own, and it is this, as much as the speed of passage, that truly sold her on the idea. She only has to interact with others if she chooses to, for even her meals are brought to the cabin for her. She does not need them and does not eat them, for they taste like rotten leaves and sour, maggoty meat; this is not the cooks’ fault, just her new state of being. She hasn’t eaten since she died, and she doesn’t really feel hungry. She tells them she has her own food, and they accept that, used to paranoid passengers and eccentrics alike.

She does leave the cabin every morning, though, to stand on the deck, out of the way of the sailors hauling ropes and trimming sail and all the hundred other things needed to keep a ship this size running. She waits in the weak dawn sunlight, feeling the ship roll beneath her feet and the salt in her nose, relaxing her muscles until she is ready. Then she begins, so slow and steady that an observer might think she was unfamiliar with the motions; nothing could be further from the truth, for the skill and control needed to go at the pace she sets is incredible. No muscle is out of place, her feet are perfectly set, and her hands go exactly where they are supposed to, despite the movement of the ship around her. It is no longer quite the Five-And-Fivefold Forms, the small adjustments she has made to tune the arts for her new Essence turning the movements a little more savage, a little more brutal. Never cruel, simply final. The nerve jabs and sweeps that would have disoriented and knocked down an opponent will now tear flesh and break bone. 

She is watched, of course. The sailors who can afford not to pay attention keep an eye on her, nervous to be carrying someone so openly female into the West, where the Sea Mothers sink ships for such an affront, but the Guild pays bribes and hires assassins so that they do not truly need to worry about it. Most of the time, at least; no Sea Mother sinks a Guild ship a second time. Other stare because she is unusual, with her black-stitched cheek and white robes. One stares because they are fascinated.

They are a teenager, from the looks of it, though they stand a full two heads taller than Drowned Wisdom and have arms thicker than her thighs. The heavy furs and bone-ornamented headband mark them as a Northerner as surely as their white-blond hair and their sky-blue eyes. They wait patiently for Drowned Wisdom to finish before approaching, and they cross their fists over their chest in a polite greeting, which Drowned Wisdom returns.

“I am Ice-Over-Snow,” they say, their voice a deep, mellow bass. “May I have the honour of an introduction?”

“I am Wisdom Drowns The Faithless Penitent,” she says. “But you may call me Drowned Wisdom.”

“My thanks,” they say. “I am a martial artist, intending to compete in the tournament held in Wu-Jian. May I ask your opinion on my chances?”

This is familiar to Drowned Wisdom; even as an acolyte, others would come to her to ask for advice on their martial arts. She has time, and it is always a pleasure to meet and examine a new set of techniques.

“Demonstrate for me,” she says, gesturing to the deck.

Ice-Over-Snow crosses their fists again and steps into the space, filling it far better than Drowned Wisdom did. They take a solid stance, deep and broad, and begin a blistering series of heavy strikes that shake the air. Deliberate, stomping steps and full-body punches, elbow strikes, and a number of clinching manoeuvres that would bring the opponent close to be crushed. An efficient, brutal style, suitable for a resident of the North, where those lacking either quality die in the snow. She is impressed; for one so young to be this good, they must have practised since they were able to walk, for hours a day. She certainly did.

The demonstration ends in a deep forwards strike with both fists, sweeping in to smash the foe on either side of the abdomen and rupture their organs or crush their ribcage. Drowned Wisdom nods, and replays the demonstration in her head to make sure she is correct in her assessment.

“Good. Your attacks have genuine intent behind them, and your motions are sure and precise,” she says. “I am willing to spar, if you wish?”

Ice-Over-Snow’s solemn face lights up in a smile, and they nod.

Drowned Wisdom steps forwards, and the pair of them dissolve into motion. She keeps herself limited enough to prevent injury, but she is pleasantly surprised to find that she does not need to restrain herself too much. Ice-Over-Snow is strong and tough and fast, and their art seems designed for them, taking advantage of their long reach and immense power. There are little gaps, chinks in their defences that can only be closed with experience and further practise, but with another few years of seasoning they will be an implacable opponent for any mortal. Drowned Wisdom blocks a few of the strikes, to test their strength against her own, and is again impressed. She initiates a grapple, seizes an arm and makes to throw, but they react quickly enough to counter it, and the fight goes through a rapid spin as Drowned Wisdom and Ice-Over-Snow counter-counter and counter-counter-counter, until Ice-Over-Snow misses their grip and is pinned. 

“You are exceptional for your age,” Drowned Wisdom says as she helps them up. “I would rate your chances highly if the tournament is age-banded correctly. You are under twenty, correct?”

She knows they are. It’s something she can almost taste, now, as unnerving as that is - if someone is not yet full grown, she can tell.

“I have survived seventeen winters,” they say, accepting her hand and letting her haul them upright. “I understand that there is a tournament for those under twenty-one, and then one for those over. The top four from the lower tournament are permitted to compete in the upper, should they wish.”

“I would be surprised if you do not place highly enough,” Drowned Wisdom says. “But I would advise against it. Those who reach too high have a tendency of getting their hands removed.”

They look shocked.

“No true master would care,” she continues. “But most who attend will not be true masters. They will see an upstart and wish to destroy them.”

They sigh. “It is ever so.”

“In five years, you will be good enough to sweep anyone aside, with a little luck,” she says. “Do not throw that away for brief glory now.”

“Your words are wise,” they say, though they look disappointed.

“I will train with you daily, until we reach port,” she says. “If you wish.”

They just nod, eager for this rare chance.

“Very well. Take your initial stance, and I will correct as we go.”

It brings a smile to her face, teaching once more. If she were able and inclined, Ice-Over-Snow would be a fine disciple, but it is likely they will return home with their winnings. Such is life.

The nights bring less joy. The sounds of the ship and waves and crew no longer drown out the sound of sobbing and the smell of unwashed, infected wounds. She has never really thought about slaves before now. They had always been just something that existed, a punishment for sins in this life or a past one, and she has never interacted with any. She can’t avoid it now, though. There is no reincarnation, so there is no reason for them to be punished now, unless they are criminals. She knows most are not. She knows, too, that some of them will not survive to port without intervention. She can taste it in the air. 


	12. Chapter 1: Break

In the morning, she trains with Ice-Over-Snow. In the afternoon, she rest in her cabin, trying to soothe her growing headaches and weariness with attempts at sleep and meditation.

At night, she wanders the ship. She passes the night-watchmen without a sound, and climbs over the railings. She peers in on the hold full of slaves, chained in long lines and wallowing in their own waste. She feels her blood boil, hears it thrum in her ears, and she knows what must be done. It’s all so simple, now that she has resolved on it, and the only real challenge is forcing herself to wait until they are close enough to Wu-Jian.

Finally, finally, the islands loom on the horizon, buried under what seem to be endless towers of tenements and closely-clustered shacks, built atop grimy stone. Endless rope bridges and ratlines run from rooftop to rooftop, window to window, until the whole island seems to have been colonised by giant spiders. At the bottom, no sunlight has been seen for centuries, while those at the top lounge in their rooftop gardens. The wealthy don’t even live on Wu-Jian proper, having instead colonised the gateway island, where once there were farms. 

Drowned Wisdom smiles. They are on their approach, and Ice-Over-Snow is in their cabin, getting ready to depart. She ambushes them and ties them tight, then seals their door. She would rather not have to fight them.

The guards below decks try to bar her passage. She kills them, and breathes deep of the Essence released from their delectable corpses. Her headache eases a little. Her mouth waters. There is no alarm, not yet, for she is quick and quiet enough that the only noise was the wet snap of bone as she twisted heads around until necks broke. The guards do not carry keys to take them further into the holds, for there is no trust within the Guild. She offers a brief prayer for their souls, then she presses a palm to the dead men’s chests, and they rise again, take up position on either side of the door as she instructs. You could almost believe they were still alive.

She punches the lock out of the door and walks into the upper hold, where she is surrounded by drugs from every Direction, silks and furs and jewels; she ignores it all. She descends again, and she can ignore the smell no longer. Despair and sickness, strangely sweet, and she knows that if she were still alive she would be vomiting. The tears and moans have long dried up, now, and all she can hear is the slosh of the waves against the hull and the counter-splash of the filth lining the bilge. 

The slaves are still there, though. She can taste their life through the door, waning as it is, and she wastes no more time. She kicks the door open and strides into the hold, wading through the vile soup that comes to her ankles. The slaves, men and women and children and beastfolk, all sizes and ages and colours, cringe back from her entrance. They are sickly and exhausted and so bone-deep afraid that every motion makes them flinch, and she feels her head go fuzzy with rage at the sight. There are dozens of them, all of them people, all of them reduced to this. 

All of them broken.

“But I love the broken, and the living, and the dead,” she whispers, and it lights a fire in her stomach. She feels flushed and giddy.

“Do you want to be free?” she asks, not loud, but the question echoes. “Shall I break your chains?”

Silence falls. A woman stands, fierce and proud and still so scared of Drowned Wisdom that she shakes uncontrollably, but she stands, and she speaks.

“Yes,” she says, her voice rasping. “I want to be free again.”

Drowned Wisdom approaches her, and she smiles, and her forehead heats and stings and red trickles down over her face and into her eyes. She takes the chains in her hands and they bend and break like they’re made of dry twigs instead of steel. 

“Be free,” she says. “Who is next?”

She works her way down the lines, breaking chains and dripping blood into the filthy water at her feet. Her hands are bruised and cut and she feels wrung-out and tired enough to sleep on her feet, but she is content with this. She is doing good, for once in her life, of her own choice and with her own hands. The freed slaves stand there, not really sure what to do, until a battered and whip-scarred lion-woman bares her fangs and limps for the door. The others follow, in a slow but steady stream of the sick and the injured, but they leave none behind. Those able carry those who cannot walk. Drowned Wisdom slithers through them to the front of the crowd, and halts them at the door up to the top deck.

“We are nearly to Wu-Jian,” she says. “And I will clear your path to the city, if you will let me.”

“I’ll not leave this ship,” the lion-woman says. “Until the bastards who brought me onto it lie dead in my claws.”

Drowned Wisdom smiles wider. Her stitches are beginning to tear, and her teeth show through her cheek. She wants this. “I can steer us well enough to make landfall. Let’s clean the decks, shall we?”

The lion-woman grins in response, and then they are flooding out onto the top deck. The slaves are tired and sick and weak, but the sailors and guards are taken by surprise and cannot match the sheer fury of the freed. Drowned Wisdom darts from fight to fight, slaying with raking, clawed hands and bone-snapping kicks. Her hunger grows. They lose some of the slaves, of course, for every side in every battle owes a tithe to the Underworld, but they stand victorious and blood-drenched before the sun is directly overhead. Her head aches and her hands tremble and her face is a red and sticky mask, but she is well enough to take the wheel, and the ship is simple enough to keep pointed in the right direction. 

She knows this city from maps and long, boring tutoring sessions, from conversations with older relatives and the endless whining complaints of her sister. It is old knowledge, and half-useless, but she knows enough to take them in so that they do not attract Realm naval attention until it is too late. She lashes the wheel in place, collects her luggage, frees a furious and frightened Ice-Over-Snow, and laughs as the ship hammers into the dockside and beaches itself in a thunderous cloud of splinters and sand. 

There is a guard response, but they come too late to catch anything other than shocked onlookers and a slowly-tilting Guild vessel, keel snapped, deck red, and holds empty.


	13. Chapter 1: Chainbreaker

She knows that Mud is the furthest down one can sink in Wu-Jian and remain above water. A whole society established in and around the clogged and rusted sluice canals at the very bottom of the island-city, rickety buildings elevated on shaky stilts to keep them away from the filth and the vermin that infest every corner of the district. Ruled by gangs and criminals and pirates, and filled with the poor and the dispossessed and the outcast. Even the most daring Dragon-blooded rake wouldn’t bother with it, for there is too little worth their while down here - unless they are a serial killer or worse, in which case it would be perfect. The stink of sour seawater and rotting mud mixes with the more human odours of unwashed flesh and open sewers. 

It is awful, and it is the very best place they can go.

The freed slaves gorged themselves on the food and drink available on the ship, and it gave them enough strength to get this far; some of them thought further ahead and carry with them bolts of cloth and furs and refined drugs liberated from the cargo hold of their captor’s ship. Drowned Wisdom carries Ice-Over-Snow still, across both her shoulders, much to the teen’s frightened despair. They get many sidelong glances, but a ragged group of scarred and still-bloody men and women and children are not the sort of thing you want to remember seeing, if you live in Mud. 

Drowned Wisdom is both satisfied and frustrated, glad to have freed the slaves and yet irritated with herself for her impulsive actions. She will certainly be tracked, now, and while she can slay skilled mortals with little effort, she does not like her chances against a true Wyld Hunt. She will need to keep a low profile, here; one Guild ship ruined and robbed will cause trouble, certainly, but more turmoil will bring down more trouble, and she will already have to keep her eyes open for Guild assassins. Her conscience could not let her leave them there, though, not with what she knew.

She plans as they march through ankle-deep silt and muck and kick rats out of the way, with no destination in mind other than ‘away from the docks’. They head inland, taking random turns and twists through narrow alleys between the towering precipices of the man-made cliffs those who live above call ‘home’. Mud gets even worse as they move deeper, further away from the limited light the outer edge of the city sees, into the twilight depths of the undercity. It’s almost like moving through a very thick, very old forest; the only light is from buildings around them and the tiny slivers of sun that manage to pierce through the canopies and washing lines and awnings overhead. The residents start to look longer, and some even turn their heads to fully stare. They look away when she matches their gaze, but she knows they are now deep enough that Realm patrols are not the greatest fear of the inhabitants.

Good.

They walk a little further, some of the group starting to flag, injured or weak or carrying those who can’t walk on their own, before she halts. It is a street like any other down here, narrow and filthy and lined on either side with the flotsam and jetsam that washes in with the tide. The buildings surrounding them are boarded up and covered in graffiti; there is no real evidence of life, here. She tears open the half-rotted boarding covering the main entrance to one of them, picked at random, and ushers everyone inside before she props the boarding back into place behind her. 

She turns, and is met with a sea of expectant faces. 

“You alright there, Chainbreaker?” one asks - the lion-woman who first left the hold. “You’re looking a little wobbly.”

Drowned Wisdom sighs, sets Ice-Over-Snow down carefully so that they can sit upright, and stretches, forcing the exhaustion back. At least this deep into the city there is no sunlight, and the deep, empty darkness is soothing. Her headache is still there, and the gnawing hunger that is settling into her belly can be ignored for now. 

“I am fine,” she says. “How is everyone doing?”

There is a vague grumble from the freed slaves, perhaps three dozen all told, but they seem hesitant to speak up. They still fear the lash, she knows. So she pushes up her sleeves and sets to trying to help. She gets people settled into the set of mouldering rooms they’ve broken into, organises a watch, and keeps an eye on everyone to see who they all turn to. The lion-woman. The woman who first spoke, back on the ship, still proud and fierce but with blood oozing through the back of her clothes. A boy not even into his teens, who tells jokes and stories and keeps them all distracted. 

They do not look to her for guidance. She is a stranger and ostensibly wealthy and she has powers they do not understand. She has powers she does not understand. She has been dead for fifty days, and she barely knows anything. She is not part of them and never could be, and she tells herself that she does not wish to be included. 

She ungags Ice-Over-Snow, instead of thinking further on it, and squats next to them to have a quiet talk.

“I do not wish you harm,” she says, and she knows it must seem like a mad lie with the way her hands and feet and face are covered in blood, already gone past red to black. 

“I don’t understand,” they say, and they look so young. “Why did you do this?”

“None are free until all are,” she says, and it surprises her how vehement she sounds. “Could you live with yourself if you had the power to do this, and did not?”

“But they’re just slaves,” they whisper. “They aren’t people. Why do you care?”

She closes her eyes and lets the pain pass through her. 

“Despite your words, you are young,” she says. “So I will ignore it this once.” She leans in closer, almost nose-to-nose with them, and breathes cold air over them. “I do not wish to have to kill you. Will you remain silent on all of this, if I release you?”

“Who would believe me?” they say. “Some madwoman single-handedly freed fifty slaves and killed the entire ship’s crew and then rammed it into the docks?”

“Yes or no, Ice-Over-Snow,” she says, and she can feel that cold settle into her chest as she steels herself. 

“Yes. I will remain silent,” they say, half-sobbing. “I’ll take it to my grave.”

“Very well,” she says. 

She unties them and leads them outside. The two of them stand there for a moment, and she feels that old familiar hurt throb in her heart as she sends them away without a word. It hurts just as much being the sender as it did being sent. Is this her fate, now? To form attachments and sever them as soon as they become inconvenient? Ten days on the ocean are nothing, but she felt that there could have been more, there, a disciple or a friend. She lets herself just stop for a few minutes, stood there straight as a post in her white robes with her bloodstained hands. A drunken pedestrian takes one look down the street and runs away screaming about ghosts. 

She heads back inside, and begins to arrange her next steps. Wu-Jian is, she knows, ruled in name by House Nissar, a cadet branch of House Peleps. The satrap is a Sesus. Neither power centre truly rules the island, though; that privilege belongs to the Thirteen Schools, crime syndicates that happen to wear the trappings of martial arts traditions. She is certain that they are currently in the territory of one of them, and is torn on how to proceed. In the end, it isn’t really her choice. She perches on a windowsill, and the three she noted earlier come over of their own accord.

“May I have your names?” she asks.

“Feast-Of-Plenty,” the lion-woman says.

“Kalaria Selinn,” says the other woman.

“Juk,” the boy says. “You some sort of god?”

Drowned Wisdom shakes her head. “No. Just… different,” she says. “I wanted to ask you all your opinions.”

“Ask away, Chainbreaker,” Kalaria says, sounding weary. 

“What do you all want to do from here?” she asks. “I do not wish to decide for you. I am happy to assist however you think would be best.”

That seems to stun them into silence. Feast-Of-Plenty rubs her wrists, old manacle scars clearly visible. Kalaria sits on the floor, ignoring the mud and filth, and leans her elbows on her knees. Juk steps forwards and give her a cheeky, empty grin.

“I don’t care,” he says. “I’m already dead, so why not just enjoy it? So long as I get food and a place to sleep it doesn’t matter.”

“I think he speaks for most of us,” Feast-Of-Plenty says. “But not all. I would like to have… warm beds and fresh clothes and to sleep at night knowing I’ll wake up tomorrow.”

Juk scoffs, but Drowned Wisdom can see the look in his eyes. He doesn’t want to want that, because if he does he can only be disappointed.

“I want to kill as many fucking slavers as I can,” Kalaria says, finally, eyes half-closed with sleep. “But if I can’t have that then I want to be fucking untouchable.”

“What do you want, miss not-a-god?” Juk asks, and takes another step closer. 

“For there to be no slaves,” she says, soft and weary. “To destroy the Realm. To break every chain binding everyone until we are all free.” She sighs. “But I think I should start smaller than that. I would like for all of you to be happy and comfortable.”

“You got a plan?” Feast-Of-Plenty asks. “Because I’ve never been further West than Fajad.”

“A few. We could try and get into one of the major gangs here,” she says, ticking off options on her fingers. Juk takes another step closer. “Or set ourselves up as a rival organisation. We could try and find people jobs, or try and sell off the items you retrieved from the ship and book passage elsewhere. I could leave you to your own devices, if you wish.”

Juk kneels next to the windowsill and rests his forehead on her knee, without warning. “You’re cold,” he says. “I think you’re lying to us, Chainbreaker. You must be a god.”

The others look at him with a sort of resigned pity. Drowned Wisdom tentatively places a hand on his head and leaves it there. She feels the sudden urge to snap his neck, and it takes everything left in her to stop herself from violently recoiling.

“We should set up and kill anyone who opposes us,” Kalaria says, staring at Juk. “Right?”

“I think we should try to join up with someone,” Feast-Of-Plenty says. “I’m sick of having to fight for every scrap.”

“Once everyone is rested, can you ask them all what they would like?” Drowned Wisdom says. “I think there should be a consensus on this. I feel responsible for you all but I do not want to make decisions for you.”

They all nod, even Juk, and she finally allows herself to close her eyes.


	14. Chapter 1: Foundation

It’s strangely quiet, this deep in Mud. The thick layer of filth over everything muffles the noise of life around her, and the cramped alleyways make sound echo strangely. She can hear the sea as though it is just on the other side of the nearest buildings, but the squabbling of the traders and boisterous cheer of the drinkers in the market at the end of the alley seem a hundred miles away. Perhaps it’s just her. She’s tired and her head pounds in time with the waves on the rocky shore.

They have moved three times in as many days, avoiding patrols of gangsters and martial artists and once even the Realm. She has been scouting and talking and worming her way into the confidences of those vulnerable hangers-on who orbit around the Thirteen Schools like trash at the edge of a whirlpool. It’s harder than it was back in Fajad, between the pain and the exhaustion and the filthy clothing she has to bear with, but she thinks it might just make her fit in better, too. She’s been finding out who is weak and who is strong and where they are either. 

The Thirteen Schools may be the biggest fish in the ocean, here, but they are not the only ones. They have ten times as many little competitors, gangs who hold a street or two, and it is here that Drowned Wisdom and her allies have set their sights. The freed slaves are nowhere near fully recovered, but there are enough of them that it doesn’t matter, especially with Drowned Wisdom’s assistance. Those able to fight are gathered around the street market, with their knives and swords from the Guild ship hidden under rags and stolen blankets. 

The Golden Siaka Society has an optimistic name, and its members dress to try and fill the part, cheaply-dyed yellow sashes around their waists and sharp teeth on leather cords around their necks. They rule this street market, and the people for a street in every direction, with an iron grip, twisting arms and breaking legs and taking what they are not given. They allege that they are providing protection. Drowned Wisdom sees only the rough-woven scourges they use to strip skin from muscle. Despite their presence, scowling and scarred young men and women on every corner, she is not worried. Her claws are tucked into her belt, clearly visible, and her people are ready for her sign. The street market is bustling and trade is brisk, if angry, and the tides of human life washing past her make her skin crawl, but that will be fixed soon enough. 

The Society is based out of a gaudily-decorated set of rooms that face onto the market, but no amount of bright paint and badly-disguised wood can conceal their true nature. They are desperate and poor and hungry, just like everyone else down here, but they have turned that against their own families, dragging everyone under the waves by trying to climb over them into the sunlight. 

Time for them to feel her hand around their ankle, and for her to tug.

She steps delicately through the crowds, and drifts to the Society’s front door. The young toughs stood outside sneer at her, move to push her away. She is stood upright and dignified one moment. She takes a single deep step, her arms move in tandem, and they both die. Her claws have found a neck and a heart, and she barely pauses to contemplate their bodies before she opens the door and steps in. 

Behind her, she can hear the commotion as the other Society members see what has happened and begin to swarm towards her. She knows her allies will be slitting throats and dragging stragglers into narrow alleys in the confusion, and she relishes the look of shock on the face of the gangsters lounging about in the front room for a single instant before she moves. She flows between clumsy punches and angry whip strikes, claws ripping the life out of everyone she passes. Four bleed out behind her, in a symphony of wet gurgles and weak thudding death throes. As men become ghosts, she breathes deep, and she can feel the edge of her exhaustion ebb. 

The easy victories do not last long, though. She flicks the blood from her claws and then the door leading deeper is smashed from its frame and hits her side-on, sending her staggering back. Her footing is steadier in the spreading blood, and she tosses the door to the side in time to intercept the next attack. She fends off a spear and a sword and a whip in quick succession, but she has to make it a fighting retreat, pushed back under the weight of the co-ordinated assault.

It is the main force behind the Golden Siaka Society, the Golden Siakas themselves. Two women and a man, triplets with slick blond hair and sneering gold eyes and snarling serrated teeth, spreading out to surround her. Their sashes are actually woven with metallic thread, and their necklaces bear real siaka teeth, and their strikes are heavy enough to make Drowned Wisdom concentrate for the first time today. 

She smiles.

They test back and forth for a few moments, probing and countering and manoeuvring; she does not want to let them past, and they wish to encircle her. They pause for a long, tense moment, assessing, and Drowned Wisdom moves first. She takes a spear point to the shoulder in exchange for three fingers and an eye, and disarms the swordswoman by trapping the blade in her ribcage, and from there it is inevitable. Less than a minute later the last Siaka dies quietly, both lungs shredded by steel claws. 

Drowned Wisdom tugs the sword from her body, and goes to reinforce her allies. There isn’t much left for her to do, though; there were fewer than twenty gangsters in the Society, and she killed half of them alone. The market is nearly empty, traders and customers alike knowing better than to be around a gang war. Only the freed slaves remain, bloody and grim, and the cooling flesh that used to be the Golden Siaka Society.

Juk scurries up to her, hollow smile on his face, and sets a bloody yellow sash in her hand with a reverent bow. It’s followed by seven more, borne by as many freed slaves, and the cloth feels cool and heavy in her hands. Soothing. 

“Chainbreaker, Siaka-slayer,” Juk says, soft and quick and feverish. “We spilled blood today.”

She nods, and clenches her fingers around the sashes. “This is our place, now,” she says, loud enough for them all to hear. “Your place. Food and beds and coin.”

“I’ll go fetch the others,” Kalaria says, her hands slick with blood and a smile splitting her face. “Good plan, Chainbreaker.”

It wasn’t. She is no tactician, and ‘kill everyone’ is not a plan, but it worked well enough here. The fighting was the easy part, though. The challenge will be moving fully into the space, taking over and doing things their own way and not turning into just another Golden Siaka Society. She didn’t free slaves so that they could turn and enslave those around them.

She returns to the Society rooms, checks through them for any surprises, and just manages to collapse into one of the overstuffed armchairs before sleep takes her.


End file.
